1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods for processing daily consumption of demand and time of use meter readings for electronic, gas, water and other metered entities, and, more particularly relates to validating, editing and estimating of such data for billing purposes and customer presentation by utility companies.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Revenue metering and meter operations have a rich tradition of being very accurate and stable processes within utilities. The goals of +99% accuracy and timely delivery of billing reads has been the undisputed standard for decades. With the advent of AMR, a new metering paradigm has been created. Data delivery requirements have been increased by several magnitudes; monthly delivery has been replaced by daily and even hourly delivery. Accuracy has also improved, errors associated with misreads, can't reads and data entry errors are virtually non-existent.
The notion that AMR delivers more data with higher accuracy is universally held within the industry. This notion is true for most meters but not all. The reality of AMR metering is that along with increases in accuracy and data delivery comes a new level of complexity and a variety of new failure mechanisms. The flow of data from the meter to the billing system while untouched by human hands goes through numerous software processes and hardware devices that must be monitored and controlled closely.
To further complicate the AMR paradigm, utilities have added the element of timing to the metering equation for a large population of meters. Not only does the quantity of energy used need to be accurately recorded but also so does the time of usage. It is no longer acceptable to report energy usage over a 30 or 60-day cycle as a single event, it now must be reported daily at the beginning and end of four or more distinct time periods.
Along with this new complexity, AMR ushers in new opportunities and a requirement to reassess the traditional metering paradigm. No longer does the identification of meter problems take months, problems can be identified and corrected in days. The need to estimate energy usage is reduced in both scope and volume. With daily reporting of energy usage; billing reads are generally no older than 24 hours and if a read is unavailable, only a short time period of consumption must be estimated. In most cases, with AMR, only known usage now must be allocated to the appropriate day or bin.